Ask not what your backers can do for you

We've gotten a lot of emails saying we should chase more pledges by telling what we will do if you give us this much money or that much money. Having just tipped over to 400% (are you serious?) we'd rather tell you what we've been hard at work to give you, based on your donations.

MUSIC - Austin Wintory

We've teamed up with Austin Wintory, composer of the critically acclaimed 2012 game "Journey", who will bring his incredible talents to The Banner Saga. Yes, for real. Austin won the Hollywood Music Award for "Best New Film Composer" and winner of "Best Original Score - Video Game". If you haven't heard his work before I recommend watching this video as soon as you can.

Guess what? If you've already pledged $25 or more you're getting the soundtrack for free.

SOUND - Kpow Audio

We'll be working closely with the amazing sound studio Kpow Audio to give you the best possible sound quality and ambience. You may know them from their work as the entire sound team on the blockbuster hit L.A. Noire.

ANIMATION AND CINEMATICS - POWERHOUSE ANIMATION

To accomplish the huge number of unique frame-by-frame animations we'll be producing for The Banner Saga, we've enlisted the help of Powerhouse Animation. Powerhouse is made up of animator veterans who have been creating top tier work for games including Epic Mickey, DC Universe and Starhawk.

While they're experts at a whole range of animation styles they're just as excited as we are to produce animation in the classical, traditional style of Sleeping Beauty; one frame at a time. This is a labor of love for both of us!

NEW PRIZE - THE RELIC

Pledge $800 or more:

Immortalize something meaningful to you in The Banner Saga. Send us a photo of your own heirloom, memento or just something you'd like to show your friends and we'll turn it into a relic of value and power. We'll work with you to come up with a unique name and description that could include anything from a mysterious inscription to giving off a certain aura. You'll personalize it and make a coveted piece of gameplay by choosing from a list of rarities and in-game bonuses it provides. Doesn't look very viking-themed you say? That's ok, the marketplaces trade in items pillaged from all over the world. This new prize includes all the other prizes below it!

NEW PLATFORMS - iPad and LINUX

Oh boy, it's finally official. We've heard your massive outpouring of support and will officially be porting to the iPad and Linux. Let's be up front here: the Kickstarter campaign is officially for PC and Mac, and we can't change that now. However, we can now promise that your donations will be used to port the finished game to these new platforms within a reasonable timeframe. We're committed to it.

And that doesn't mean we're done porting. Depending on what amount we end with other platforms are absolutely still on the table.

NEW PROGRESS REPORT

Somehow, production continues to happen!

We've done the concept work for each of the major characters in our first release, some of which you can see in the above piece of concept art. This is the sort of production piece you'll see in the collector's edition art book. We'll be talking more about the history of these races soon!

Now that design is done we'll be spending the majority of next week filming character animations and getting them ready to be animated into the game.

We continue to refine our many interface elements and adjust numbers in combat for our working prototype.

Now that we've gotten the green light on working with all these incredible artists we're setting up the framework to integrate their work (no small endeavor) and let them work at their full potential!

NEW THANK YOU

As we've mentioned before, when we originally mapped out this game it was on a much more modest scale. Who could have known there would be this sort of demand? Thanks to you we're going to be able to bring this game to a level we never imagined and we think it's obvious at this point that without you it never would have happened. If you're excited about it just imagine how we feel. Thank you.

Comments

I'd also prefer to see the multiplayer cities before the console ports. Cities are intriguing. Ports? Meh. Kickstarter funds should be primarily used on content that ALL of us backers can use, not a port that most of us WON'T use. Especially when the port would generate revenue for itself through its own sales.

It's awesome to see how well you guys are doing. I hope it only continues to explode. I just want to say that it's great to see you guys hitting the nail on the head for what I want from a game. Taking that more modern Bioware feel, mixing it with dark fantasy and tactical combat—man. I saw Final Fantasy Tactics and Shining Force mentioned: two of my favorite games ever. I'm *so* stoked.

I third the motion. Though I would love a boxed set, if that is not possible, I would totally up my donation to get a hardcovered artbook. The beautiful art work is what sold me on the project to begin with...whatever you decide all the best.

I'd love to see a bigger version of the concept art, and I join Mark Doherty in being interested in the physical version of the artbook (despite living in Europe).
I also wanted to say I appreciate your approach of telling us what you're going to use the extra funding for: it's great to see the talent you've managed to gather (Austin Wintory! WOW!!!). :D However, from what I've seen, some "reach goals" can be a great way to invite more support and inspire people further.

I will admit my jaw dropped when I saw the musician you'd picked up, but that artwork also made this a great update (is that a celtic centaur, or is it just the size that makes it look like half her face is painter blue?)

Speaking of art, the one tier pledge I still don't see (besides boxed copies, which is nixed in the FAQ) is one offering a physical copy of the artbook. I'm sure it'd cost a bit to print, but if you made the tier $125 or $150, you'd surely cover the extra costs while enticing a fair few people to upgrade - there's a lot of people who pledged to this kickstarter based on your art pretty much alone.

Thanks so much for putting together a truly compelling game concept. I resisted pledging the $50 as long as I could-- just about 5 hours, I think.

Related note to your iPad comment in a previous update-- do you know what resolution range and aspect ratios you are planning on supporting? How would full-screen play work? I was fortunate enough to get a 2560 x 1440 27" monitor, and I wouldn't want it any ugly stretching of the beautiful art.

@mvime: Generally speaking*, broadening an already-multi-platform project to further (indeed, similar) platforms is markedly less difficult than porting a codebase that makes extensive use of proprietary features (e.g. Microsoft's DirectX), and going from Mac OSX to Linux and from OSX to iOS should both be less challenging than going from Windows-only to any of them. :)

Given that the original project on Windows and OSX was budgeted at around $100k, and we're likely to end at $500k+, I think you can be sure we'll be getting more in *every* area -- as evidenced by these new music, sound, and animation updates. :D This game is going to be even better than I'd hoped.

I just upped my pledge because of the good news. However, personally I'd prefer you to spend the money on making a more complete and longer game than in porting the game to even more platforms. Also, I hope that all this porting won't impose any technical limitations to the original project, which was to work on OSX and Windows.

@theadam It's gonna be by Austin Wintory, who made the soundtrack to Journey, the music of which was simply beautiful. The pledge hasn't changed, but there was a whole lot more in this update than "You get the soundtrack for the $25 pledge". /sigh/

Wow! I know I said it before, but really, I CANNOT wait to play this! :D Oh, and you guys should DEFINITELY collect the stories behind the relics people submit, as well any other cool stories about backer submissions. I'd love to hear them!

Yay, Linux support! And even more stuff that looks like it will make this game really fantastic. I love the art. I wish I could afford the $800 for the heirloom. I have a couple of things (I'd have to choose between them) I would really enjoy having immortalized this way. That's a great reward BTW.